At last someone makes the case against localism

Localism – the idea that decisions should be taken as closely as possible to the people they affect – has gone from rebel insurgency to ruling orthodoxy without any intervening phase. Four years ago, when I and a group of newly elected Conservative MPs contributed to the publication ofDirect Democracy: An Agenda for a New Model Party, our ideas were regarded as outré. Today, half those MPs are in the shadow cabinet, many of our doctrines have become official Tory policy and it's hard to find anyone, even in Labour, who will publicly disagree.

The decentralisation of power is all very well, he argues. But what about things that are in the interests of the UK as a whole? What if we need a new rail-link, or a new power plant, or a new airport? Would every local council be allowed a veto? Citing a recent case in which a local authority in Norfolk declined to allow a new supermarket, he writes:

What if Sheringham had voted no not to a supermarket, but a windfarm, or a nuclear plant needed to meet low carbon targets? Courageous locals would be dubbed obstreperous nimbys instead. The townspeople would still be right to make their objections felt. But the nation might be right to overrule them.

Plainly there are some things that are nation-wide in their scope and nature. Defence is an obvious example: the Armed Forces are defending the territory of the UK as a whole, and it is hard to see how towns could opt out. Immigration is another. Although Switzerland has found ways to devolve elements of citizenship and residence rights to its cantons, the permission to allow someone to settle permanently in Britain must be taken by the central government. In these areas, we localists push for the democratisation rather than the devolution of policy. While it may not be practical to have hundreds of competing jurisdictions, we can shift power from Whitehall to Westminster by, for example, making the relevant departments and quangos dependent on their parliamentary Select Committees.

But what about the cases that Glover cites – the unpopular but necessary accoutrements of modern life, such as incinerators and mobile phone masts? The answer here, surely, is to allow local communities to put a price on accepting them. Let us say that a county wants an incinerator, and identifies a dozen potential sites. It should then invite the local authorities from each affected area to submit a sealed bid, stating how much it would want in return for accepting the facility. The one to submit the cheapest bid would win.

The council could then spend the fee as it wished: it could give residents a tax rebate, write them cheques, or use the money for something else. A similar system works successfully in a number of US states. Apart from anything else, it would encourage local people to weigh the costs and benefits, instead of automatically opposing every proposal on grounds that it is being forced on them from outside. Tell a group of people that they must take a mobile phone mast, and they will understandably protest. Invite them to sell permission for a site (which would, among other things, ensure that their teenage daughters would be able to phone them at night) and they might take a different attitude.

Let's at least have the argument. Few anti-localists set out their case openly, as Glover does. Instead, they rely on the nomenklatura to asphyxiate any proposals for the devolution of power. They know that it is much easier for parties to demand decentralisation in opposition than to deliver it in office. Why invite a debate when you know that Sir Humphrey will do your work for you behind closed doors?

Still, taking everything together, I think that this time it will be different. The first test of the localist credentials of an incoming Conservative government, for these reasons, will be whether the new Home Secretary will face down the campaign by chief constables against elected police commissioners. I am cautiously optimistic.